Thursday Comedies: 30 Rock 6.08, Parks and Rec 4.16, Archer 3.09
Archer, Season 3, Episode 9, “Bloody Ferlin”
Written by Adam Reed
Airs Thursdays at 10pm ET on FX
Tonight Adam Reed & co. examine what Justified might look like if you replaced Raylan Given with Sterling Archer. If it’s not one of Archer’s best episodes, it’s a significant step up from “Lo Scandalo.” The biggest issue this week was the casting of Jack McBrayer as Ray Gillette’s brother Randy. Playing yet another redneck he is using more or less the same accent he uses on 30 Rock, which is rather distracting, especially because Kenneth’s youthful innocence is long in Randy Gillette’s past. Your mileage may vary, but this can certainly create a disarming sense of mental dissonance.
Aside from that, it’s a reasonably strong episode, with Archer initially eager to go along with Ray (who was never paralyzed, we learn this week) because Randy’s situation mirrors the plotline of White Lightning (starring Burt Reynolds, of course). This devolves into an amusing wife-swapping plot based on Randy’s hilarious misinterpretation of Genesis 38:8 (look it up, Adam Reed did his homework here), and in yet another reversal we learn Michael Rooker’s crooked sheriff actually has Randy’s best interests at heart, capped off with Rooker coming on to Ray and revealing that his high school bullying was just misguided self-loathing.
